Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Racist, brilliant, or both?

Actually, the original question, from the thread title, is whether the ad is racist or brilliant

That question alone says a lot to me. And the OP, to me, in the answers to the posts in this thread, appears to not really be looking for feedback which might lead to changing the ad, or to actually doing some reeavaluating if people think it's racist, rather than brilliant.

It looks to me like, and perhaps to some others, that the OP really wanted the answer "It's brilliant!" and was busy interpreting what he meant the ad to do when many folks thought it wasn't, rather than, say, re-doing the ad so it sounded more like what he claims he intended.

But hey, as you say, perhaps the demographic he wants to attract is different from the one on this forum. But, as we see here, many people on this forum *are* piano students, or their children are. So - what demographic, specifically, is the OP trying to attract? The ones who buy into the viewpoint I expressed in the post TimR quoted? Or does the OP just think those are the ones from whom money can be most easily extracted for lessons, despite the later posts to the contrary? Or does the OP, despite many posts on this thread, honestly think that's not the demographic to whom he is appealing, and that his ad is just a clever way to get people to call him? Why *would* people call him from this ad? I dunno - it's all strange to me

Cathy

Regarding the OP's original question, if he claims to be targeting the "high-end, affluent, educated" demographic then it's quite possible that parents in this demographic may think that piano lessons is one of the many activities that may give their kids the necessary push to the top in life. However if the parents already think in this manner, they most likely would have had their children in piano lessons. Therefore the OP is not providing the target demographic population any new information that they did not already know. In fact, the OP has not shown in his ad what unique value as a teacher he can offer to prospective parents.

Is the ad racist - maybe. Brilliant - no.

Racist – probably not, definitely not brilliant.

There are an umpteen number of threads and posts regarding interested vs. uninterested parents so I won’t get into that. As a parent, all I will say is, if you’re dealing with interested, well-informed parents, this ad won’t impress any. Why should we send our children to you for lessons are what we are looking for; that and words of mouth. For others, you may have a chance.

I don’t think well-informed parents care how successful certain ethnic group or groups are but rather how successful can we teach and help our own children become. That has something to do with how good their schools, teachers, coaches are, and how well we bring them up at home. The Joneses' kids down the street are doing great but should that have anything to do with how good or bad my kids are doing?

Perhaps Cathy is right and I feel the same too. The OP is probably interested to see if this idea of advertising is brilliant only?